


5 Times an Avenger was a Hypocrite and the 1 Time One Realized It

by dls



Series: We Were Young Once, Full of Violence (now you're silent, and I'm breathing the cold) [4]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: 5+1, Broken Team Dynamics, Civil War Team Iron Man, Gen, Hypocrisy, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Tony Stark-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-14
Updated: 2017-01-14
Packaged: 2018-09-17 09:39:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9317054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dls/pseuds/dls
Summary: Hypocrisy. No one was immune to it, not even The Avengers with their superhero strength, skills, and senses. Events leading up to Civil War and one scene after.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Beta-ed by [Arboreal](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arboreal).
> 
> References/Quotes:   
>  Bryce Larkin (from the show _Chuck_ ) and Neal Caffrey (from the show _White Collar_ ) are characters portrayed by Matt Bomer.   
>  _Avengers: Age of Ultron_.

**One.**

Bruce stared at the blackout windows of Tony's lab and sighed. His friend had been in there for close to two days since their last battle. A bank robbery normally wouldn't require the Avengers, but a diplomat's girlfriend was one of the tellers and he demanded to have the most qualified team on the job. Tony had been against the idea, stating emphatically that they were not qualified, oblivious to the venomous glares from two former spies. Ms. Hill agreed, much to the surprise of the others, but stated the mission carried more political significance than actual threat.

They had geared up, with Steve taking the lead on making contact while Clint and Natasha focused on retrieving hostages. Bruce and Tony were working on discerning the composition and firepower of the bombs that could be seen through the glass doors.

As it turned out, Tony was right. The negotiation for hostages escalated to a shouting match then an explosion, spilling chaos into the streets and resulting in property damages and civilian casualties. Thankfully there were no deaths but a little girl suffered severe head trauma, they were all waiting tensely for the update from the hospital.

Throwing one last glance at the closed doors, Bruce walked back to the elevator with a heaviness in his steps. He felt responsible for  _hulking out_  – as Tony fondly termed it – when the bomb detonated; his control had improved with his meditative efforts but was still too brittle for his liking. Bruce wanted to talk with his friend, who understood better than their other teammate, but Tony wasn't available because he had a habit of isolating himself in times of emotional distress. Bruce pushed down the swell of bitterness valiantly, reminding himself that Tony was hurting too. 

"He's still not answering, though JARVIS assures me he's okay." Bruce offered when he entered the common area, where Steve, Natasha and Clint were gathered.

"I could have told you he wouldn't answer. Wait, I did." Clint smirked.

"Tony likes to shut himself away when things get tough. He'll come out soon." Natasha said, her tone carrying a kind of carelessness so calculated that it was anything but. "I did profile the man."

"Well, running away never solved anything. It just prolongs the problem." Bruce sighed.

Steve nodded, "You gave it a good try, that's all anyone could ask for."

Later, when they received the good news that the little girl hadn't lost her sight and would make a full recovery, they all breathed a bit easier.

Tony eventually resurfaced and shrugged off their good-natured teasing about his head-in-the-sand habit.

 

**Two.**

Steve and Clint reached the kitchen at the same time, both men heading for the refrigerator. It was half past two in the afternoon, which was an unusual time for a meal but hardly surprising given the nature of their work and schedule.

Super soldier apparently meant super metabolism, and Steve was starving after the recent battle against some type of sludge monster, likely a product of an experiment gone wrong. The Avengers were called in by Ms. Hill, coordinating their defense initiative and directing them to where help was needed.

Clint had just woken up, resetting his internal clock from a stakeout mission the night before. They had received a tip on a possible HYDRA base and some reconnaissance was needed to formulate their next step.

"How did it go? Gotta say I'm glad I didn't have to fight yucky play-doh." Clint rubbed a hand over his face, smoothing his weary features for a moment before he scowled at the sight of the nearly empty refrigerator.

"It was alright. The thing was pretty slow and we were able to contain it with just me, Natasha, and Tony." Steve might not have noticed, but there was a hint of condemnation in his voice when he said last name.

Clint did notice and raised a questioning brow. "What did he do now?" He grabbed the bottle of half-empty orange juice, not bothering with a glass and gulping down the rest without break.

"He just took off, didn't wait for the all-clear or attend the debriefing." A frown marred Steve's eternally boyish face. "Ms. Hill has done a lot for us since SHIELD fell and the least he could do is attend the meetings and show some respect."

"I'm not surprised, talk about biting the hand that feeds you, you know?" Clint groused. "He's one ungrateful bastard."

"Language." Steve chided mindlessly, busy searching for the leftover pasta that seemed to have disappeared. "Hey, want to order a pizza?"

"Yeah, sounds good." Clint eyed the bare shelves disapprovingly before shifting his attention to the stack of take-out menus. "The BBQ chicken one from Johnny's? They got Tony's card on file."

Steve was already dialing the number, nodding when Clint pointed to the breadsticks on the menu and holding up three fingers to indicate the number of orders.

 

**Three.**

Clint's farm was a surprise, though next to the existence of his family, it was like comparing a rain drop to a tsunami.

Steve did a good job disguising his hurt with shock, feigning interest in the conversation when he wanted to scream. Tearing apart firewood with his bare hands was the best solution he could find for his frustration without any reinforced punching bags around. It was supposed to be a solitary activity, for Steve to vent so he could lead with a clear head, but Tony joined him and set Steve's already frazzled nerves aflame. Too many secrets and betrayals in too short of a time.

"Thor didn't say where he was going for answers?"

"Sometimes my teammates don't tell me things. I was kind of hoping Thor would be the exception." Steve said, slightly ashamed of his passive aggression but it was better than the pure aggression fighting to manifest.

Luckily and a bit disappointingly, Tony didn't pick up on it. "Yeah, give him time. We don't know what the Maximoff kid showed him."

"Earth's Mightiest Heroes." Steve snorted, he wasn't sure if anyone on the team still deserved that title. He certainly didn't, though not due to any direct actions on his part, but for his inability to corral his team. "Pulled us apart like cotton candy."

There was a challenge in Tony's voice, "Seems like you walked away all right."

Steve never backed down from a challenge and wasn't going to start, especially considering who he was speaking with, "Is that a problem?"

"I don't trust a guy without a dark side." Tony's answer bordered on glib, contrasting sharply with the viciousness in his swing, the wood splintering loudly beneath the axe. "Call me old fashioned."

"Well let's just say you haven't seen it yet." A warning steeling his almost causal words. He didn't appreciate or approve of what Tony was trying to do. Insinuating Steve to be untrustworthy because he  _didn't_  keep secrets? When Tony was, for the most part, responsible for the Ultron catastrophe and indirectly the cause of Steve losing faith in his team and what they stood for.

"You know Ultron is trying to tear us apart, right?"

"Well I guess you'd know. Whether you tell us is a bit of a question."

Tony did pick up on the passive aggression this time, which explained his need to bring up Bruce. "Banner and I were doing research."

"That would affect the team." Steve pointed out, not letting Tony off the hook and not impressed with Tony's cowardice, dragging in another teammate to shoulder his responsibility.

"That would end the team. Isn't that the mission? Isn't that why we fight, so we can end the fight?" There was a hint of desperation in Tony's voice, culminating in an impassioned plea. "So we get to go home."

Steve momentarily considered he might be a bit too harsh, Tony was recovering from Maximoff's nightmarish vision after all. He tried to project a sense of calm in his words that he didn't feel in his heart. "Every time someone tries to win a war before it starts, innocent people die. Every time."

Tony was called away before Steve could say anything else. Their conversation left unfinished and unsatisfied.

Steve hoped Tony would be able to understand the importance of transparency, the need for accountability, and the futility of winning a war by starting one.

 

**Four.**

Sam was watching videos of their previous missions on YouTube, a fascination Steve didn't understand and didn't want to encourage.

As with most things on the internet, it was a slippery slope of recommendations and suggestions. You could start by looking at videos of cats sitting in boxes and end up watching a guy popping his pimples - Thor had been most displeased. 

The videos started out innocently enough: civilian footage of their missions, news reports, photo slideshows, press conferences, and public meetings. The last one was how Steve and Sam ended up watching a 2010 clip of Tony calling a panel of senators  _ass-clowns_  and making references to  _prostitutions._  They had looked at each other in shock, then Sam pressed replay. Steve was beginning to understand why this particular video had over five million views by their eleventh viewing. It didn't make more sense as they re-watched it, in fact it made less and less sense.  
  
It was a blatant act of disrespect to be so flippant and dismissive in the face of authority, officials who represented people and wanted only to do right by their constituents. Tony held a tremendous amount of power in his hands as Iron Man, without SHIELD or the Avengers Initiative to rein him in back then, and he was understandably considered a threat. Something Tony obviously didn't see. 

"Man, he had some balls to say those things." Sam leaned back, finally deciding to stop the replays. "But he can't just go around ignoring the government, he had to see that people were totally scared of him and he's not the be-all end-all authority on world peace."

"Tony has always been a bit irresponsible and his ego is huge." Steve sighed, the optimistic part of him wanted to believe this was a Tony of the past but he knew that was wishful thinking. "The first time I met him, I almost decked him."

"Really?" Sam perked up, the man's calm deposition belied his love for gossip.

"Yeah, we just didn't see eye to eye, but I stopped myself because violence is never the answer." Steve said, bumping his shoulder against Sam's when Sam rolled his eyes.

They sat in companionable silence for a while, the screen frozen on Tony blowing kisses mockingly with Rhodes looking resignedly defeated in the background.

"This Rhodes guy, he any good?" Sam asked. He had only met the Colonel in passing.

Steve nodded, "Yeah, he's a good fighter and a good friend of Tony's."

"I'm sensing a ‘but' coming up?"

"But," Steve started, smiling at his friend's ability to read him, "He's loyal to Tony first and the country second. It's worrying sometimes."

"I can see how that'd be a problem in the field," Sam said thoughtfully, "Good thing we work as a team."

 

**Five.**

Wanda was reading an article profiling Stark Industries' latest products, the new phone looked interesting, when she saw something unexpected: Ms. Virginia Potts, CEO of Stark Industries. Wanda had always thought Stark  _he will never be Tony_  was the CEO of his company. It did have his name and she had held Stark responsible for her parents' death because of it. Could she have been wrong? Uncomfortable with this line of thinking, she left her room to seek out someone who could answer these questions. Luckily, Natasha was in the hallway.

"Hey Natasha." Wanda greeted. "Got a second?"

"Sure, as long as it's quick." Natasha was heading toward the elevator. 

Wanda fell in step behind her, waiting until they're in the elevator before voicing her question. "I was reading this article and it said a Ms. Potts was the CEO of Stark's company? When did that happen?"

Natasha pressed the button for the lobby, eyes trained on the descending numbers, "Five years ago, give or take. Tony had some troubles handling everything so he promoted Pepper, um, Virginia. We call her Pepper, it's a nickname." She clarified, a hint of a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.

"So it was him." Wanda muttered, knowing Natasha could hear her in this enclosed space but not caring because her relief was sudden and powerful. She had not spent her life blaming the wrong man, and she would continue to do so until he had paid for his sins and her losses. Then another thought occurred to her, "Does Stark even have a job?"

Amused, Natasha shrugged. "I doubt he's ever had a job in the traditional sense, but he is heading up their research and development department at the moment."

"I see." Wanda replied, though she didn't really  _see_  what Natasha meant about research and development. She did understand the first part, Stark was born rich and stayed rich – wrongfully entitled to everything in life without earning it. "Well, thanks for clearing that up."

"No problem." Natasha nodded her goodbye when the doors opened.

Wanda stayed in the elevator, waiting for it to take her back up to the common area. Stark was pathetic, relying on the good people of the world to pave his way, taking their help for granted, and always asking for more. Once the elevator stopped, Wanda stepped out and settled herself into one of the comfortable couches in front of the large entertainment center. She told FRIDAY to get her the latest Stark phone before queuing up a movie.

 

**One.**

Natasha froze when she flipped to the next section of the newspaper. Checking current events began as part of her training but was now ingrained into her daily routine. It was helpful, to say the least, to keep an eye on the happenings around the globe, especially when she was a fugitive hiding from most of the countries in the world. She needed every advantage she can get. 

Briefly, she wondered if there had been signs leading up to this Civil War, as the press called it, and whether or not she failed  _again_ at noticing them - just like she had failed to see the signs of HYDRA's infiltration of SHIELD. However, to examine the Civil War would require her to address this  _feeling_  in her gut and she was not yet ready. 

Refocusing her attention, she read over the article that had stopped her in the first place. It was a home invasion, a crime usually appearing only in the local papers, unless it was particularly brutal. _If it bleeds, it leads_  was the saying. This one managed to make it to the New York Times - a family of four, throats slit in their sleep; neighbors reported hearing nothing to indicate a slaughter was happening next door.

It had the markings of an assassination, Natasha's instincts warned her, and the missing electronics and jewelry could very well be part of a cover-up. Further down was a photo of the family, and Natasha had her confirmation that it was not a home invasion but a hit.

She recognized the man.

The article referred to him as Bryce Larkin but Natasha knew him as Neal Caffrey, a fellow SHIELD agent who specialized in retrieval and infiltration. She remembered his retirement announcement, and the cake with the Raphael painting of St. George and the Dragon – some sort of inside joke – printed on the frosting at the party. He was a good man who was supposed to be living the good life, and it appeared he had been, until... _yesterday_. But how? How did they find him?

Natasha's hands shook as she set down the paper. The black smudges on her fingertips suddenly looked alarmingly red to her blurry eyes.  _She did this_.

When they leaked the classified SHIELD information, they hadn't had enough time to comb through the data because their primary goal was to expose HYDRA. She hadn't thought about it since that day, pushing the betrayal and anger to the back of her mind until it resided with her memories of the Red Room. She should have thought about the ramification of releasing all of those the documents, photos, and footage. 

_But she hadn't._

Neal was dead, along with his wife and two daughters. If she had access to the internet, she had no doubt that more articles reporting on  _home invasions_  would feature the faces and names of her former colleagues.

Who weren't HYDRA.

Yet that distinction hadn't mattered to her,  _or Steve_ , when it should have. She knew her intentions had been good, to expose a corrupt organization with too much power and influence, but the outcome was disastrous.

"I made a mistake," she whispered, voice empty and filled with too many emotions at once, "I didn't know."

A sense of déjà vu overcame her. She had heard those words before, in that exact tone, but when?

Natasha searched through her memories, isolating traumatic events – because no other type of event would cause this hollowness in her chest and heaviness in her stomach, mixing unpleasantly with the  _feeling_  already there – and when she finally recalled the incident, she flinched so violently that she almost tripped over her chair. 

_When had she stood up?_

It was Tony.

After Ultron. 

Natasha had cornered him in his workshop, viciously giving him a piece of her mind.

_"I made a mistake," Tony had whispered, clutching to DUM-E's robotic arm the way a child would cling to a teddy bear. "I didn't know."_

_"You should have! For someone who talks nonstop about his brilliance," she had snarled, "you certainly don't act like it. You are reckless, selfish, and childish. You never think through your actions, always acting on impulse and always screwing everything up."_

_Tony's huddled frame had stilled, his knuckles white. "Oh like you've never made a mistake you couldn't foresee?" His words muffled behind clenched teeth, as though he was trying to hold something back._

_"Don't make this about me. Your attempt at deflection is pathetic. You're pathetic."_

Natasha felt cold. Tony knew about SHIELD and the aftermath of the data dump. He had been ready to attack, calling out her hypocrisy but he hadn't. She remembered launching into another diatribe, watching with cruel satisfaction when Tony would open his mouth only to find himself wordless. She had attributed it to him knowing he was caught, that he was wrong. But now she could see perhaps he was sparing her because  _she_  was hurting.

The timing of Neal's death was suspicious too, was it a coincidence that Neal's enemies just happened to crack the encryption the moment Tony was out of commission due to whatever happened in Siberia? Or was it causation? She knew without a doubt that it was the latter and her certainty confused her. This kind of behavior didn't fit the profile she created. 

_She had been wrong about Tony Stark._

And she wondered bleakly what else and who else she had been wrong about.

Natasha stared at her trembling fingers and tried to concentrate on her next steps, because in her current situation, dwelling on the past would do her no good. Except she was supposed to be looking for the bigger picture, meaning she had to look at  _everything_. Natasha didn't know how long she stood there, but eventually her fingers stilled and she knew where she needed to go – Wakanda.

**Author's Note:**

> [dls-ao3.tumblr.com](https://dls-ao3.tumblr.com/)


End file.
